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"Made in Japan"-- what's the story?


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OK, Classic Camera geeks. While they're squabbling over 20th century

politics on the adjacent Zeiss thread, I have a question I've been

meaning to ask for a while.

 

First, a preamble: when I was a small kid in the late 1950s/early

1960s, "made in Japan" was, of course, synonymous with 'crap'. So

the question is: if it was really crap, why are those Eisenhower-era

Mamiya Cs, Canon Ps, and Nikon Ss still chuggin' along?

 

Could it be that Japanese post-war precision technology was really

pretty damn good, but that we said it was crap to protect our home

industries? Or was there really a lot of Japanese-made crap out

there, and a tiny amount of excellent stuff that survived 50 years to

become classics?

 

Opinions please.

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Right after the war the Japanese industrial base was pretty well destroyed and the economy was in shambles. Initially the stuff they produced for export, with a few exceptions, was pretty shoddy--that's all they had the capability to produce.

 

I think the camera industry was the first industry to gain international recognition. photographers covering the Korean war discovered Nikon and Canon cameras and optics. A big change came when Sony broke into the electronics market and developed a reputation for quality and innovation. Then, as the Japanese got into R&D they started producing slrs that literally took over the camera market. In the late '60s and early '70s Datsun and Toyota started bringing in well-built cars with standard features that cost extra on American cars. The speed with which the Japanese recovered from the war was pretty astounding. I think they tried harder because they were behind while American industry sort of assumed the consumer would buy anything they produced, even if it wasn't innovative.

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Much of it was myth. How could a country that constructed two of the world's largest battleships (The Yamato and Mushashi) and the Zero fighter be backward technologically? There was a lot of crap made by all countries including the USA.
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I know that, for decades following WWII, the "Made in Japan" legend was indeed

synonymous with junk. Make no mistake, it WAS junk.

 

The intent of the Western occupiers of Japan following the war was that Japan should NOT

return, at least not quickly, to its full technological glory. We DIRECTED the industrial and

economic reconstruction of Japan, steering it into the production of small, cheap, mass-

produced items, which could contribute to the recovering Japanese economy without

contributing to great advances in Japanese technology (read as military technology). So,

for many years, Japan produced wooden matches, tin wind-up toys, handheld transistor

radios, and myriad cheap novelties almost exclusively. This was OUR doing, and it was

intentional.

 

As it happened, though, these mass-produced items became the backbone of the

Japanese economy, so they just continued investing in the industry, and in the process

invented newer and better ways to operate and manage mass-production facilities. Japan

eventually became THE MODEL for mass-production business around the world, and that's

when "Made in Japan" became synonymous with efficiency and high quality technology.

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actually you have to go back a little further to find the root of the "Made in Japan is crap" Point of view. before WWII Japan made and sold a lot of cheaper quality produce especially toys and household goods. These were however bought in large quantities by us because they were cheap and just barely coming out of the Depression anything cheap meant money went further. Items like kids toys wern't important so the cheapest was bought.

 

By 1947 the Japanese camera industry was putting out MANY very high quality cameras. As evidensed by those cameras still being found in good working order 50 years later.

 

The Japanese camera industry had a huge help by the Occupation forces who bought almost everything they could make (where do you think the <EP> mark came from.

 

Not sure of the others but the Canon P was a much later product being first marketed in March of 1959 I own a 1957 model L-1 that is twice the camera from a users point of view when compared to my 1959 Leica model IIIg and 3 times the camera as compared to my 1951 IIIf RD.

 

I'm sure that the others (like Nikon with the F in 1959) were every bit as good as any camera company in the world by the late 50's

 

Over priced and over foddled Leicas included.

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<p><em>Could it be that Japanese post-war precision technology was really pretty damn good, but that we said it was crap to protect our home industries?</em></p><p>By "we" you seem to mean people in the US. I can't pretend to know the reasons why people in the US said what they did, but I'd imagine that it's just another example of the way that cognitions (pardon the grandiose word) are simplified and popularized and thereafter last well beyond their sell-by date.</p><p><em>I have a Minolta 6x4.5 folder made in Japan around 1947. It is really a piece of "junk".</em></p><p>I'm sorry to hear it. I have a Fuji 6x6 folder made in Japan around 1949 that looks as if it has had a lot of use (yes, it's a "user") and yet is not at all a piece of junk.</p><p><em>I know that, for decades following WWII, the "Made in Japan" legend was indeed synonymous with junk. Make no mistake, it WAS junk.</em></p><p>Gosh, sorry, I must have made a mistake then. The cameras I have that were made in Japan during the decades following WWII were junk. I mean, we're told this in CAPITALS, so it must be true.</p><p>But seriously, this "discussion" strikes me as a bit silly. What do you mean by "crap" or "junk"?</p><p><em>Or was there really a lot of Japanese-made crap out there, and a tiny amount of excellent stuff that survived 50 years to become classics?</em></p><p>Yes, there were a lot of Japanese-made cheap cameras. Plastic was sometimes misused, alloys were sometimes poor, and designs were sometimes flawed. The percentage of excellent stuff (by most people's definitions of excellent) was a long way under 100% but it also wasn't tiny.</p>
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In the post ww2 1940's and 1950's "made in japan" often meant garbage or junk in some toys, flashlights, batteries, but not always. I remember these terrible "made in Japan" flashlights and batteries that were flakey, leaked alot too. Part of the problem was poor temper and metals in these cheapie items.. With cameras the Nikkors of the early 1950's are excellent, they never were junk. There were always these cheapie "HIT" type 16mm toy cameras, that had goofy pigskin cases, that broke after a few years, and many cheapie box cameras, with plastics that were brittle.
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The idea that Japanese products were of poor quality was nothing more than propaganda on the part of (mainly) American business. It was almost certainly a reaction to the high quality of much Japanese export material, especially machine tools and other high value items. These were considerably cheaper than American products because Japan was, at the time, a low wage economy. The 'Japanese junk' label was easy to apply because, as in most economies transitioning to high levels of industrialisation, there was a lot of low cost, low technology stuff made by a workforce unfamiliar with high quality production standards. This transition was complete by the 'sixties and 'Japanese' became synonymous with 'high quality' in almost all areas.<div>00G0wM-29374684.jpg.dda86f4ec53cf382a2c42c00ee3f4a6e.jpg</div>
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Ditto: Most of my dad's generation, the depression era & WWII folks bought into the propaganda that made in Japan meant cheaply made. As was mentioned a lot of cheap stamped and folded together metal toys did come from Japan that may of contributed to the false sense of American-made superiority, but most of it was prejudice.

 

The Japanese really had to pull themselves up from the bottom in 1946 and not every camera from the 1950's was of stellar quality. Niccas, Canon and Nikon rangefinders were exceptionally well made. Yashica and Minolta TLR's weren't as exceptionally well made as a Rolleiflex, but they were of exceptional value. I still have a 1958 Minolta Autocord and it is going strong.

 

In the 60's when the second wave of 35mm SLR's came out, Japanese manufacturers were leading innovators. The rest is history.

Best Regards - Andrew in Austin, TX
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I think the Japanese simply copied the prestigious "Made in Germany" and built their own reputation by making great products instead of the expected junk -- just like it had happened in Germany at the end of the 19th century. The British required that the "Made in Germany" label had to be on all imported goods from Germany to protect their own economy from cheap and poorly constructed foreign junk ("Merchandise Marks Act", 1887). But very quickly that label became a great advertising brand that had exactly the opposite effect (what we would call today corporate identity).
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The 1947 vintage Semi Minolta 6x4.5 folder I purchased new was a poorly designed/manufactured product, period. No comparison to an Argus C3 or Kodak Retinas, period. Can't speak for any other Japanese cameras till my Canon FTb came along in the early 70's, they had it "right" by then in the camera industry.

 

As far as improvements in Japanese design and manufacturing, an American named Demming was responsible, check it out. Seems they needed alot of quality control improvements, among other things. The Japanese "idolized" him!

 

I'm trying to remember...... when was the last time I saw a Datsun 240Z on the road........ compared to Corvettes and Mustangs? I understand the Yamamoto never saw combat, they scuttled her at sea. Zeros were cannon fodder for P38's.

 

Amazing how "Uncle Sam" takes all the "heat" now. Regards.

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Zero's High Tech? No, they were acceptable aircraft but they achieved their fame because (a) their pilots were very experinced after several years of flying over China and (b) they lacked such high tech items as armor protection for their pilots. In fact, once an intact Zero was captured during the Aleutian campaign and repaired, the allies discoverd how to beat it.

 

The super battleships? Sure big and impressive but in reality they didnt sink many ships (a couple of destroyer escorts and light carriers during the Phillipines campaign) before being sunk themselves. Though they never met an Iowa class battleship, experts agree that the Iowa class would have been the victor. Also there was a third ship of that class the Shinano which was converted to an aircraft carrier and was sunk on the first night of its maiden voyage, by a single submarine and 6 torpedos.

 

Here ends the lesson from the History Channel.

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The Japs actually listened to R.Demming and all the quality stuff.

Americans didn't.... same thing that will happen in the next 5 year with hybrid cars.

 

And they had access to the German optic/shutter designs they just went head on to produce those, and improve them somehow.

 

I think like in everything, Canon, Minolta, Pentax, and a few others were the cream of the crop and they have survived, stil work, were made of high quality and are considered classics by many nostalgic people.

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>I understand the Yamamoto never saw combat, they scuttled her at sea. Zeros were cannon fodder for P38's<

 

The Yamato was sunk in the final months of the war and went down fighting (although on a totally impractical mission) The super battleships were dinosaurs when they were built but who knew at the time? The Zero fighter was the best plane in the air at the beginning of the war. They claimed more than their share of Allied planes--including the P-38 in the early going. It was only after U.S. industry really kicked in and pilot training and tactics improved that our fliers could match up with the Zero. Junk? I think not.

 

I think a lot of the "crap" idea was based on the cheap, tinplate toys that were imported before and after the war.

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<p><em>The 1947 vintage Semi Minolta 6x4.5 folder I purchased new was a poorly designed/manufactured product, period. No comparison to an Argus C3 or Kodak Retinas, period. Can't speak for any other Japanese cameras till my Canon FTb came along in the early 70's, they had it "right" by then in the camera industry.</em></p><p>Ah, but even without personal experience of any of them, you may have noticed that the Nikon and Canon rangefinder cameras of the fifties were used with at least moderate success and without excessively loud howls of complaint by David Duncan and other western photographers.</p><p>I think what may have helped to put a question mark over Japanese cameras were the ambitions of some of them. My impression is that a number of manufacturers put out medium-format SLRs, for example, before they'd ironed out the snags. (Most of these brands are now forgotten.)</p><p>Here in Tokyo, working examples of prewar Minolta TLR and Mamiya RF folders aren't that hard to find. I don't want to belittle the contribution of W E Deming [one "m"] when I point out that their manufacture predated his arrival (c. 1950, I think) in Japan.</p>
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Peter, I'm not sure that Deming's ideas ever percolated down to the tiny Japanese manufacturers of TLRs and such. But by the time my father went to Japan in 1953 to teach Mitsubishi Electric Westinghouse Electric trade secrets -- all correct, WECo sent him -- Mitsubishi Electric was full of enthusiastic disciples of Deming.

 

I suspect that Nikon was also full of 'em. The transition from rangefinder to SLR was very difficult, most camera manufacturers took several tries to come up with a reasonably satisfactory SLR. Nikon is the big exception; the F system seems to me the best thought-out of them all. Unlike all of the others, it was, um, preadapted for TTL metering. Canon, at the other extreme, thrashed and flailed and had horrible problems before they got things right. Leica, alas, had an even harder time making the transition.

 

Dave, as has been mentioned, in the '50s Japan was a major source of inexpensive and poorly-made toys. In the '60s, they sent us inexpensive and poorly-made transistor radios. And in the early '70s they sent us inexpensive cars that weren't well-suited to US conditions. But at the same time some Japanese companies' products were as good as, sometimes better than, anything else in the world. As usual, broad generalizations aren't quite true.

 

Cheers,

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<i>The idea that Japanese products were of poor quality was nothing more than propaganda on the part of (mainly) American business.</I><BR><BR>What total horse dung BS<Br><BR><BR>Here I remember holding several "Made in Japan" flashlights while changing a tire at night in Indiana in the 1950's, and both died during the ordeal, then we would use a robust decades old Made in USA rayovac flashlight in the car to finish the job. The socket sets then that were made in Japan would shatter, like the heat treating was too harse. We used a "Made in Japan" rachet during that Indiana tire change, the detent,pawl got goofed up during the late night ordeal. We used the stock made in USA wrench to finish the job. To say there was never any crap "Made in Japan" stuff made is an totally BS retarted statement, maybe a feel good lets candy coat the past BS sins of making crap products that broke and pissed folks off. There are some "Made in Japan" stuff that was total crap, it crapped out, broke, died, sheared off during normal usage, and folks would utter. "that god damn "Made in Japan" crap garbage" etc. <b>Today most all stuff "Made in Japan" is decent, that doesnt mean it was always that way.</b> <BR><BR>In the 1950's "Made in Japan" Christmas lights were way cheaper than GE's or Westinghouse bulbs, but then the paint was often chipped, or a percentage of the bulbs didnt work. With a series string of bulbs only a mad man would buy a "Made in Japan" set then.<BR><BR>When Fuji started to sell E4 slide film in the USA decades ago, they used NON crimped snap cap cassettes, that would come apart if dropped, when mailed off for processing, even sometimes just in a camera bag, sometimes in the canvas lab send away bags too. If one sent off Fuji E4 film for processing, one had to always use a film can, and make sure the local labs didnt remove them if you used a local lab that farms out work. Sometimes the E4 Fuji crimps were really weak, like they were learning or having stamping problems.<BR><BR>Long ago with Fuji in <b>620 rolls,</b> they got the same "620 weakened roll crimp flange problem" as Kodak briefly did, the film flange of the 620 rolls would fall off, and expose the entire edge of a roll. <BR><BR>In japanese low cost telescopes alot of the early post ww2 refractors were way worst than todays walmart made in china stuff. The ones I had stripped out the focusing rack, the rack was a cheap die casting riddled with porosity, just begging to break. Then to get parts would require months, and often the item one got was wrong.<BR><BR>The Japansese refractor I had in the 1950's had to have its mount retro fitted becuase the casting broke, again due to massive porosity,and non uniform wall thicknesses that set up stress risers in the casting.<BR><BR>We had a low cost japansese microscope in the 1950's that the rack too was a die casting, abit stronger than butter, it broke after a few months. <BR><BR>The made in usa Testrite enlarger we got in the early 1960's had a "Made in Japan" lens, a Perflex that would catch and not stop down. Sears replaced the lens with another Perflex, and it never failed.<BR><BR> My dad had this cute "Made in Japan" tripod in the 1950's that was a mess of collapsable sections, a real SOB to collapse, and about steady as Jello. We had to file down the 1/4-20 nut to make it work on the old Retina IIIc, so the screw wouldnt bottom out. The screw was WAY tool tall, giving it a "Made in Japan" is not the greatest stuff award.<BR><BR>The cool Print tri-lite strobes I used in the 1960's were "Made in Japan", they worked well, but the 90 degree tilt detent would loosen up after just a dozen or two tilts. One constantly would be popping off the ASA computer dial, and tighting the way too small metric screws and expoxing the heads. The screws were too undersized, and were stretching, yielding due to poor material of the screws. We futzed around and replaced them with some German metric screws, which were radically better, but the pitch was a grunt different. <BR><BR>In strobes, some of the early "Made in Japan" ones would not handle the current of a Nicad , and the strobe would short out an become a molten brick of plastic. At one repair shop we had a mess of failures of "Made in Japan" strobes when Nicads first tended to be used in the 1960's.<BR><BR>All countrys of the world have turned out some crap, "Made in Japan" is no different. Today "Made in Japan" is a sign usually of quality, once there were some really flakey stuff made in japan, in SOME products.
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I think this has more to do with markets than technology.After WWII,

the Japanese camera industry targeted the world wide mass market of consumer/prosumer cameras.By the time electronics figured into cameras in mid to late '60's,the Japanese owned this market(and still do).

 

How many 240 Z's are still on the road?---probably not many---how many cars did DeLorean sell?----how many americans still build "American" cars? Will Ford and GM survive

if the Gov'ment(you and me) don't bail them out?

 

The first question a consumer asks when buying a product is---How much is it?(not ---will it last 40 years)

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I wonder....... where the Japanese camera industry would be today without "Uncle Sam's" financial/technical support? Their part of the equation was cheap labor.

 

This business model is repeated every decade or so. Taiwan was next and now it's China. In a few more years maybe we'll get back in the cycle. We just aren't poor enough yet. Is someone working on that? Regards.

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John Wire, we've drifted far off topic. IMO, we in the US are not hungry enough yet. We're collectively fat and complacent. When we want to do well, we will. Until then, we won't.

 

My parents' cohort grew up during the great depression. They were nearly all scared. My cohort grew up hearing our parents' tales of want and difficulty. We were and I hope still are nearly all at least worried. I'm not sure our children know what worry is.

 

A propos of the Japanese, for years after my father's visit to Mitsubishi pilgrims from Mitsubishi to Westinghouse stopped by our house. I heard many of their stories, went on picnics with them, ... They'd been through losing a vicious war, didn't want more of the hardships they'd been through.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

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Dan, you hit the nail on the head. There is something to be said for the work ethic that comes from building up a country from the post-war rubble or even a Great Depression.

 

By the way, those Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson era cameras made photography affordable. In 1971, my US Army take home pay was $140 a month. So, a second or third hand Yashica D and a two year old Yashica Electro 35 GT weren't cheap, but each were under a week's salary used.

 

Yes, there were crap products that had an abismal build quality, but there were others were as good or better than most.

 

By the way, I do remember some of those castings made with pot metal as we called the stuff. Pot metal castings were the predecessor to the plastic components that we all know and love. Most modern tripods that I see in use have a metal lock screw for the column which is screwed into a threaded plastic casting.

Best Regards - Andrew in Austin, TX
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